


The Hazards of Adventuring in Dwemer Ruins

by TrickstersHeir



Series: Brynden the Nothing's Man [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4046218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickstersHeir/pseuds/TrickstersHeir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Brynden and Erik are swarmed by falmer on a Blackreach trip and Brynden gets injured in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hazards of Adventuring in Dwemer Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a standalone, but references Nothing Gold Can Stay near the end of the story. Unfortunately no banging in this one, but I'm like 95% sure that the next brynden fill will be pwp so yeah. 
> 
> also I went back to shearpoint on my brynden playthrough recently, and the entire time erik was spouting lines like "be careful!" And "I don't think we should be here." I think he knows the shit that went down in nothing gold can stay :-(

Erik didn’t notice Brynden had faltered until well after it occurred, when he found himself dodging a stray firebolt that came from behind him. In seconds the spell had lit up the the front of the falmer that had been lunging at the mercenary and sent it flailing backwards with shrieks of agony. A rough cough and sudden curse from behind found Erik spinning around with his shield raised and sword swinging in a graceful arc that cleaved off the head of the next falmer that approached him. It was then his gaze slid over the scattered falmer and chaurus corpses and sought out the prone form of his employer, propped up against the stone wall and reaching desperately for the small dagger he’d just plunged through the neck of a chaurus grub.   
  
Brynden was cursing every known deity on Nirn. He was awkwardly placed, his left leg bent at an angle Erik doubted was natural. The healing spell that kept trying to spark at the tip of his fingers spluttered out again and again. Not once in his time travelling with the man had Erik seen his hands so unsteady. But with the way that he clutched at his stomach and choked on bile rising in his throat while completely ignoring the arrow lodged in his shoulder, it was obvious shaky fingers were the least of Brynden’s problems.  
  
With both men distracted and exhausted on top of that, it was enough to miss the shadowprowler that had lurked up behind Brynden under the cover of darkness. The twisted once-elf let out a signature screech, slamming it’s quarterstaff into Brynden’s side hard enough to make the man let out a hoarse shout and cause his vision go white with pain. The hit had cracked his ribs. Despite every bit of his willpower trying to force him back up, Brynden felt the drowsy haze consume him and quickly found his eyes slipping shut and his body going slack as the world faded around him.   
  
The thief’s last coherent thought before he fell unconscious was a rather simple, “Erik was fucking right.”   
  
Spurred into action at the falmer’s strike, Erik surged forward, raising his shield and slamming it down onto the falmer’s head. He shoved Voidsinger down into the falmer’s chest as it toppled backwards, then pulled the blade back out with the loud shing of steel scraping against bone.   
  
The breath of relief echoed throughout the stone room. Erik did not linger long, slinging his sword back into his sheath and placing both his own shield and Brynden’s fallen bow on his back. With that out of the way, his focus fell onto Brynden himself, sprawled out on the floor and dead asleep.   
  
“By the nine, Bryn.” He murmured as he cradled the man’s limp form to his chest, stood slowly, and began the grueling search for a room not filled with corpses, chaurus, or dwarven centurions.

* * *

 

The low groan Brynden emitted as he slid back into consciousness almost made Erik jump and drop him. The nothing’s man was speaking only in gibberish, half his words slurred and the other half in some form of Cyrodillic. 

  
"... Erik?" Brynden managed to cough out, staring up at the Nord with heavily lidded eyes.   
  
"Yes?"  
  
"You kill the stick one?"   
  
Erik found a laugh bubbling at his lips. "Yes, Bryn."  
  
"Good boy." Brynden replied with a lopsided grin and a light pat to Erik's cheek from his free hand. 

* * *

  
Brynden was not a particularly light man. He was leaner than Erik, but it didn't make him easier to carry. The slayer's arms were on fire by the time he finally could prop the thief up against the stone bed and remove his shield and Bryn's bow from his back. It took considerably less time for Erik to run back and get the packs they'd dropped as soon as the falmer had swarmed them. By the time returned, Brynden was more or less self aware.   
  
"By the divines, how many of them were there?" Brynden groaned.   
  
"Too many." Erik replied sharply, setting the packs next to the bed before kneeling in front of Brynden to survey the damage.   
  
The thief's right eye was swelling up, promising to boast a hearty black ring in the morning. Several scorch marks could almost blend in with the blackness of his armor. The leather had not prevented the arrow that now pierced his shoulder, and blood still swelled up from his stomach despite the man's best efforts to put pressure on the wound. Erik held his tongue on the subject of getting Brynden heavier armor for dwemer expeditions, a subject long argued between the two.   
  
"We'll have to break the arrow to pull it out." Brynden confirmed with a shake of his head. "Get me a magicka potion from my pack before we get started."  
  
Erik obeyed, fetching the vial and helpfully holding it up for Brynden to drink from. He gulped at it like a man parched in the middle of Elsweyr. When the vial was emptied it was laid against the bed and Erik redirected his attention to the falmer arrow sticking out from Brynden's shoulder.   
  
"Here, give me your hand." Brynden sighed through gritted teeth.   
  
He clasped Erik's hand in his own, raising it up to wrap around the arrow. "Grab my knife and cut it here. It'll make things easier in the long run."   
  
Erik nodded quickly, swallowing and pulling away the knife hidden in Brynden's boot. He flipped it over to the toothed side of the blade, sawing through the wooden shaft as smoothly as possible while trying to avoid shifting it around and causing Brynden any more pain. When the shaft was cut all the way through, Erik tossed the fletching end aside.   
  
Brynden was wincing, his jaw clenched to stop any pained noises from escaping. He glanced up at Erik with glazed eyes, gripping the younger man's right arm like a lifeline. "Pull it out." He commanded, a wheeze breaking his words up.  
  
Brynden curled forward as Erik gripped the arrow shaft, burying his face against the junction between the slayer's neck and jaw. His screams were muffled against Erik's throat as the arrow was yanked from him as carefully as possible and joined it's other half on the other side of the room.   
  
A loud exhale echoed against the walls, broken and hoarse. Brynden was shuddering against Erik. He ignored the younger man's light prodding until Erik gently pushed him back against the stone.   
  
"Come on, we need to get you out of that armor and clean the wound." Erik urged. "And we need to look at your ribs." He added as an afterthought.   
  
Brynden laughed, but it quickly dissolved into a wheeze. "Finally getting me naked are we?"  
  
Erik snorted. "You specifically brought me with you so we could fuck in the hot springs. Don't try to claim moral high ground here."   
  
"And yet you blush all the same."   
  
"Hush. Help me with these straps before you bleed out."

The slow reveal of pale skin as they pulled away Brynden's leathers made Erik's breath catch in his throat. The bruises on his ribs were forming in large purple splotches. The patchwork of hickeys left across his pelvis clashed violently with them, making a multicolour quilt on his abdomen. Erik found himself wincing in sympathy and swiftly turning to retrieve a potion vial, boiled water, a clean cloth, fresh linen wraps, and two labelled tins of ointment from Brynden’s pack.   
  
“Have I ever told you you are bloody fucking amazing?” Brynden grinned as he watched the younger man carefully wipe at the arrow wound with the dampened cloth.   
  
Erik smiled. “For a farm boy.”   
  
Brynden rolled his eyes good-naturedly, but cut himself off with a hiss as the disinfectant ointment worked away at the wound. Erik himself switched the other tin, rubbing the relief mixture onto Brynden’s abdomen. The action pulled a happy sigh and the hint of a ticklish giggle from the thief.   
  
The dragonborn let his head fall lightly back against the stone bed and closed his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the magicka softly seeping into his skin and spreading out to fix the damage dealt by the falmer attack.  
  
“I was being serious, Goldie.” He murmured. “You’re absolutely astounding.”  
  
“I learned it from you.” Erik replied as he pulled Brynden forward to wrap the linens around the thief’s midsection.   
  
Brynden laughed, and pulled the Slayer closer to him for a kiss. 

* * *

Long after Brynden settled upon a pelt haphazardly thrown across the stone bed and passed out, Erik finally managed to get a fire going and pack away all of the healing supplies. The night in the dwemer ruin was quiet. The usual distant groans of machinery and muffled falmer shrieks were strangely absent. Erik couldn’t really complain. Truly the silence was a blessing for Brynden, allowing him to rest without waking frequently to scratching and screeching. For Erik it meant he was forced to deal with his thoughts on his own.  
  
Erik had never been a melancholic sort until Brynden became a part of his life. But laying under the stars with an honorable sort of thief and just talking well into the night had caused Brynden’s frequent reflecting to rub off on his mercenary. On a typical occasion Brynden would be awake with him, helping him sort through his confusion and making things a bit easier.   
  
Tonight, however, Brynden was snoring away and Erik had no intentions of waking him. So he sat in silence and stoked the campfire. Part of him wondered if this was how Brynden felt like months before, when Erik died at Shearpoint. Part of him knew this couldn’t hold a candle to that. The rest of him was scared that if anything more than this, if anything like Shearpoint ever happened in reverse, that he would never get Brynden back.  
  
And so Brynden slept, and Erik shivered in the silence. 

* * *

Breakfast was quick and simple, bread and butter and eidar cheese with a flask of ale split between the two of them. Erik was quiet, clueing Brynden into his hireling’s discomfort.   
  
“I’m alive, Goldie. Because of you.” Brynden spoke softly, correctly guessing at Erik’s thoughts. “It helps in the long run to not focus on what ifs, trust me.”   
  
“I know, it’s just…” Erik trailed off, glancing to the stone floor and shaking his head.   
  
“I know.” Brynden replied, and moved to pull Erik onto the bed with him.   
  
As soon as Erik laid his head against the pelt, Brynden nestled into his side and wrapped his previously injured arm around Erik’s midsection. “Get some rest. We’ll find the alchemy outpost down in Blackreach some other time, and we’ll bring back up with us when we do it. I’ve had enough of those fucking falmer for a while.”  
  
Erik nodded in agreement, stroking Brynden’s hair in thought. “There are plenty of hot springs above ground anyways.”  
  
Brynden snickered, pressing his face into Erik’s neck and letting himself take comfort in the warmth he found there. 


End file.
